Monthly Archives: December 2013

John 1:1-14 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. 6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. 12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. 14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

This morning we come to celebrate a birth. Not just any birth…but a birth that shines light into the darkness, a birth that changes the world. God has been active in history before the birth of Jesus. Connecting the moment of this birth to all of God’s history, the gospel writer uses those powerful words, “In the beginning…” These words that John uses to introduce the Word can also be heard in the very first verse of Genesis. [1] This connection draws a huge arc through time, space, and place, between the birth of creation to the birth of Jesus.

So while Luke spends time on the human details of shepherds and a manger, John spends time on the cosmic ones. Where Luke’s words are a simple story, John’s words elevate us into poetic mystery. We could leave it there, in those mysterious heights. We could keep at a distance this mysterious poetry that many discard as too heady or inaccessible. Many theologians do. Except…except…John doesn’t leave it dangling out in the mystery of the cosmos, untouchable or inaccessible.

John brings the Word straight to the ground. “And the Word became flesh and lived among us.” This God who created…who made promises through Abraham, who brought freedom through Moses, who instigated challenge through the prophets, who gave guidance through kings…this God became flesh. A mysterious, inaccessible, cosmic God becomes a God that is part of our common humanity, through common flesh. God taking on flesh to join us in our humanity is the birth we celebrate this morning. It is why some people call today the Festival of the Incarnation rather than Christmas. God incarnate simply means God in a body – or as John likes to put it, “And the Word became flesh and lived among us.”

God living among us in Jesus is a cause for celebration this Christmas. Not simply because God showed up but because God immerses in the struggle of humanity. As John writes, “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.” Light moving in the dark; day against night. This language may be poetic but we get it when someone talks about their darkness:

The darkness of someone we love living with a mental illness that is difficult to treat.

The darkness of grief and the confusion it brings to daily life.

The darkness of disease, acute or chronic, that seems to take up more space than anything else.

If we could sit and talk about the darkness, each one of us could name a way that it affects our lives or the life of someone we love. It is into this real struggle, this darkness, that Jesus is born. Jesus who continues to bring light that reveals God in the midst of the worst that life brings – a light that brings hope as we are born children of God.

Our birth as children of God is ‘not of blood.’ This birth gives us hope that “we will not be subject to the frailties of human flesh forever.”[2] Our birth as children of God is “not of the will of the flesh”. This birth gives us hope that “we are more than our desires.”[3] Our birth as children of God is not “of the will of humans.”[4] This birth gives us hope that “we will not always be subject to the whim and will of others.” As children of God, our lives have meaning over against anything we can come up with to say they don’t

Our birth as children of God allows us to see the transcendent, cosmic God up close and personal in the person of Jesus. So that when we celebrate Emmanuel (God with us) we celebrate the hope that is given to us as we are born children of God. To this and to all God is doing we can say, “Merry Christmas!”

“The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.”

[1] Genesis is the first book of the Bible’s 66 books. Genesis 1:1 – “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth…”

Luke 2:1-20 In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 All went to their own towns to be registered. 4 Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. 5 He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

8 In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see — I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: 11 to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,

14 “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”

15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” 16 So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. 17 When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. 19 But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

The music of Christmas is widely known. A lot of people can hear a medley of carols and know several of them. At the very least, they may know the Christmas carols enough to hum along in a store. Or maybe know them well enough to belt out the familiar words in the car on a road trip. Maybe they even fill in for words they don’t know, play catch up on rhythms, generally letting it all hang out. People know this music enough to be comfortable with it, to play with it, to give voice to it. This caroling is imperfect and joyous. These imperfect carols somehow offer a balance to the technique of Auto-Tuning that perfects the singing we hear on the radio. In contrast to Auto-Tune, these spontaneous carols that we sing are personal, authentic, and messy.

And these carols tell a story. A story that gathers us together late on Christmas Eve night. A story that had its first tellers long ago. Tellers for whom the story is personal, authentic, and messy.

The shepherds in the field who heard the angels sing are shady characters. They are nothing close to the tidy shepherds in the manger scenes that sit in our homes. These shepherds in Luke aren’t dressed in wrinkle-free, tan burlap with white corded belts. They are the dirty ones. The closest we might come to these men in the 21st century would be to call to mind the people who camp under bridges and call it home. Some of us want to claim a respect for these voices from the margin but most of us struggle to figure out how to actually do it.

These are the shepherds for whom the angels sing. They are given first dibs on the story by the angel who tells them – “to you is born this day…a Savior…a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.”[1] They head out fast to go see this baby, this Savior. After all, they clearly need one. When they get to the manger, they talk about what’s been told to them. Imagine for a moment the way they tell the story. At best, they tell it in a way that’s personal, authentic, and messy; at best, they tell the story because it’s first and foremost for them. The shepherds need a Savior; it’s obvious that they need one – a Savior definitely for them.

So, because the Savior is for them, the shepherds tell Mary and Joseph, and apparently anyone else who will listen, because, “…all who heard it were amazed.”[2] What amazes them? The story the shepherds tell? That the shepherds are the ones telling it? That a Savior is born? That angels came, spoke, AND sang? It’s pretty much all amazing. The amazing part to me is that Mary heard the shepherds out. The scripture makes a distinction here in verse 19: “All who heard it were amazed but Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.”[3] She’s just had a baby in a barn, laid the baby in a manger that by day functions as a feeding trough, and she’s treasuring the words of these wild, shady shepherds in her heart. Who does that?! For Mary, this story delivered by the shepherds somehow delivered a message that made sense. At best, perhaps because she heard it in a way that’s personal, authentic, and messy; at best, because…just maybe…it’s first and foremost for her too. Perhaps Mary needs a Savior, a Savior definitely for her.

Time and again in the Bible, we are given story after story about deeply flawed people, authentic and messy people – people who are regularly either hurting other people or hurting themselves. But it doesn’t take a 2,000 year old look back in time to see this play out. Just look, peek around at each other in the pews, or in the shops at the mall, or in your kids’ sports teams, or in the dysfunction in your own families. In all of these situations it is easy to see deeply flawed people, authentic and messy people – people who are regularly either hurting each other or hurting themselves. Similarly to the travelers in the car who sing carols off-key and off-rhythm, so is…well…pretty much everyone who sings without the doctoring of Auto-Tune…which pretty much means you too.

Our lives reveal a truth that we don’t often share with ourselves and try to avoid sharing with anyone else. Here’s the truth…we aren’t living lives that are 100% patient, loving and grace-giving 100% of the time. We don’t even have to open a newspaper to see this mess play out. We see it at work, at home, at church, on the road…you get the picture. Despite our best intentions to “do better next time,” despite the reassurances that we give ourselves about being “good people,” the truth remains: anywhere people show up, so too does the mess.

It is into this very mess, where we spend time hurting each other and hurting ourselves, that God shows up. God shows up, of all places, in a manger. A manger that has a splinter here and a cracked peg there – a manger that is personal, authentic, and messy, a manger that cradles and reveals God showing up in Christ the Savior. The manger reveals the Savior who came under a star in skin and solidarity, into a fragile humanity, to show up in the flawed, personal mess that is our lives. No longer is it self-help, it is God-help; because if history is any indication, we are unable to save ourselves from each other or for that matter, save ourselves even from ourselves.

On the First Christmas, God showed up as a baby bringing hope. “…hope [that] rests not in what we have done, nor can do, but in all that God is,” has done and is doing.[4] And we cling to the promise of Christ’s hope – the hope of all that God is yesterday in a living baby, today in a living Christ and tomorrow in an eternal God – the eternal God who turns a cross into resurrection and a baby in a manger into salvation for the world.

God shows up and says, “Not so fast…I’ve been there too …I who came in the form of a baby, who lived and walked the earth, who was put to death and who conquered death in rising again…I am God and I have the last word.” This last word of God is grace. Grace brought by the Savior who draws us back into God. And out of this grace, this new found tie back into God, emerges a sustainable hope – a hope that is personal, authentic, and messy as we live into it and talk about it in real time in our real lives.

This is the hope first shared with the shepherds, and now shared among us, as the angel says, “Do not be afraid; for see – I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior…” So, good news…for All… This means that this Savior is for the people around you and this Savior is for you. Merry Christmas!

Matthew 11:2-6 When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples 3 and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” 4 Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5 the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. 6 And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” 7 As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? 8 What then did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces. 9 What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. 10 This is the one about whom it is written, “See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.’ 11 Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

My stepfather was always good for a pithy word of wisdom. Responding to my teenage panic when I forgot to tip the waitress my first time into a restaurant on my own, Pops said, “You don’t get rich by tipping cheap.” Or time and again when I was just about jumping out of my skin about something exciting on the calendar and would say things like, “I wish it were Saturday already,” Pops would say, “Careful, you’re wishing your life away.” It’s that one especially that still catches me. The whole thing about staying in the day, knowing full well there is something amazing ahead on the calendar. “Careful, you’re wishing your life away.”

Christmas can be like that kind of waiting. When you’re four, waiting to open that enormous box under the tree can feel like a lifetime. When you’re fourteen, waiting to open what looks like it could be the new PlayStation4. When you’re twenty-four, waiting to hear back about that job interview or whether you’ve been accepted to that graduate program. When you’re sixty-four, waiting for your daughter’s flight to land or for the grandkids to show up for Christmas dinner. When you’re ninety-four, waiting to be picked up for that dinner that includes four or five generations under one roof. The things we wait for change but there is always waiting.

Some of us are better at waiting than others. But, for most people, waiting often inspires curiosity. What will whatever we’re waiting for actually be like? John the Baptist’s question comes out of this kind of curiosity. John sends his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” And, typical of Jesus, he doesn’t actually answer the question. He tells them to report back to John what they hear and see. Although it’s funny that he tells them to report their observations and then he tells them what to say. Regardless, Jesus responds to John’s question without really answering it. Leaving John to wonder about the information he receives in light of the question he asked, “Is Jesus the Messiah?”

It’s a great question. Many people at that time were awaiting the Messiah. At the turn of the first century there were many people claiming to be the Messiah. It was a confusing time, differently so than today. Today, I don’t hear a lot of people wondering about Messiahs. But I do hear people waiting. People are looking and waiting for leaders to emerge as is evident in the Presidential elections. People are looking and waiting for wins as the Broncos sew-up their regular season play and head toward the play-offs. People are looking and waiting for a lot of things, good things, fine things, even fun things. But are they looking and waiting for a Messiah? A Savior? The evidence would suggest not.

So the move we make in Advent as a church is a big one. The move into preparation and waiting is not only to celebrate a birthday from long ago. The people who are the church look toward a future with hope because there is a Messiah. This promise is massively and widely counter-cultural. This promise involves some Advent waiting.

Waiting in which some of us in the pews wonder if any of this even makes a difference? Or wondering if Jesus is who he says he is? Or who any faithful saint says Jesus is? However, waiting is not a vacuum. Waiting is time we don’t wish away. Revealed in the waiting is need. This may be some of what Jesus is getting at in his answer to John’s disciples. There is real need that needs real solutions. Jesus names hunger, illness, death, and poverty. We can add to this list quickly by naming violence against family, friend, and neighbor that comes in many forms – gossip, slander, physical abuse, murder.

I would also add to the list the way we are prone to elevate and highlight certain kinds of dramatic violence as grief-worthy while relegating the daily violence that is happening in some people’s lives and communities to normalcy. Our rapt attention to the spikes of violence deemed newsworthy and our failure to engage in the problem of daily violence that we’ve deemed normal violates our common humanity. Deeming certain kinds of violence as normal adds, not insult to injury, but injury to injury. In this way, we are not innocent bystanders.

The problems that Jesus names and the problems we add to the list are relational. In the relational language of scripture we call each other neighbors; in the language of humanity we simply call each other people. As people we are capable of fatally wounding each other in mind, body, and spirit…as people, the stark reality of our willingness to hurt each other, and our ignorance in even seeing that we hurt each other, makes obvious that we deeply need a Savior – a Savior who illuminates these stark realities and frees us into them to help our neighbor as well as being helped by them. Some of us are made ready to do the hard work necessary to meet real needs and some of us are in the sometimes more difficult reality of asking for and receiving help when we have need. Whichever end of the giving and receiving you find yourself, there is more to consider in this text. This isn’t simply about helping each other and our neighbor out in the name of Jesus.

This is about being saved by the Messiah who reveals our need by calling us out on the way we damage each other and ourselves. We, who are saint and sinner at the same time, are drawn to faith by the One who forgives us for the hurt we dole out and stands with us while we take on the consequences. It is this one, this Messiah, who the kids in Simply Christmas point us toward this morning even as we still wonder if we’re really in need. Only to hear that, yes, we are in need and cannot save ourselves. But the one who is, who was, and who is to come, is the Savior. A Savior worth the wait – a Savior for all of us, a Savior for you.

Matthew 24:36-44 A Future With Hope [or Enough With the Rapture Already]

December 1, 2013 – Caitlin Trussell

Augustana Lutheran Church, Denver, CO

“But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into.Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.

For one long summer, I was a day-camp counselor. Not the super-fun-guitar-strumming kind – just kick that little bit of counselor stereotype right on outta here. Oh no, I was the 17-year-old-in-charge-of-a-large-group-of-5-year-old-girls kind of counselor. I was more the protector-against-mortal-peril kind of counselor – think mother hen. Our location was cool but slightly tricky for herding 12 little girls. It was a dried out river arroyo near Pasadena, California. Water hadn’t run through it in eons and it was full of scrub oak and draught-resistant trees and the constant threat of poison oak. We built a group fort and created a group flag which means that there was fort raiding and flag stealing going on. It was utter triumph to show up at the end of the day flag ceremony with another group’s flag – a sign of a successful raid.

Victory and shame were the two-sides of that stolen flag event. The ultimate in victory was to show up at the flag ceremony with another groups’ kid – but for the counselor with the missing kid, it was the ultimate shame. Any of you want to guess who one of those shamed camp counselors was at the end of the day? Yup, yours truly. Oh, the ultimate shame…knowing your kid was taken and knowing the return would be anything but a triumph. After all, even in this fairly innocent form, being taken was not a good thing…

Being taken is rarely a good thing. In fact, our gospel writer seems to have a strong bias against being taken, a problem so big that no one would ever knowingly opt into it. Revisiting the flood story reveals this negative bias. The people swept away in the flood story, the ones not on the ark, were leading their normal lives until they suddenly were not. Through the story of those lost in the flood, the gospel writer is setting up the negative lens of being taken.

The negative lens of being taken is the set up to read the next verses. There are two workers in the field, one taken the other not; and the two women grinding meal together, one taken and one left. Through the lens of the flood story, being taken out of the field or away from the grinding are big problems in this text. And of course that’s problematic! Who would want to be living life in one moment and only to be taken out of it the next?!

In the context of the gospel of Matthew, being taken is a bad deal. At the time of its writing, chaos was in full force. The Roman occupation left the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem destroyed, there were wars and rumors of wars, and many people were suddenly being taken away, kidnapped either to be killed or enslaved.[1] In this text being taken is a bad deal. For people curious about or hurt by rapture theology, this begs a critical question? [2] If being taken is a bad deal, might the gospel be suggesting that being left behind is the better deal?

For some of us long told otherwise about being left behind, just asking this question of scripture can be good news indeed. And, for some of us, it may be the only good news needed today. However, in the interest of full disclosure on the Bible text today, there’s more…you just have to wait for it – which is appropriate because Advent is a time of waiting.

As Advent begins, the first Sunday is filled with the image of actively waiting and keeping watch. This scripture argues for watchfulness in the midst of life being lived. Notice that the list of activities of those washed away in the flood were simply normal activities, not tied to judgment – “they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage.” The workers in the field and the women grinding meal are doing the work of daily living. So, by their example, we are also encouraged to be living and working and taking care of the things of daily life even, and maybe especially, in the midst of the chaos of the times.

This is part of the reassurance of this text. There is a lot that cannot be controlled. But there is still life to live. And into the chaos, the wars, the kidnappings, and just as equally into the work, the life, the events of the day, comes the Son of Man. The Son of Man is also called “the Son” as well as “Lord” in these verses. All of these labels mean Jesus. Jesus is the Son; Jesus is Lord; and Jesus is the Son of Man. It’s important to spell this out because there seems to be a temptation to disconnect the Son of Man in this passage in Matthew from the Jesus revealed in the gospels as a whole. As if somehow Jesus lived, loved, healed, and died, and then resurrected in a seriously bad mood ready to wield some divine wrath upon a fallen humanity.

It is not so difficult to fathom how idea of the Son of Man became disconnected from the Jesus who died on the cross. It is the same disconnect made by the criminal on the cross from our gospel reading last week, hanging next to Jesus who was also on a cross and challenging him to save them both if he was the actually Messiah. Regardless, the one who hung on the cross is also called the Son of Man. And this is a word of comfort and hope to Jesus followers during the confusing times of the first century and the equally if not more confusing times of the 21st century.

Because, as Pastor Pederson reminded us yesterday at Nina Forgo’s memorial service, Christian people model life not on one particular morality or philosophy or piety. In relation to this text today, I would add that Christian people do not model life on panic or fear either.

Rather, Christian people’s lives hinge on promise, God’s promise.

God’s promise that insists there is more to the human story and God’s own story than that which has been experienced already.

God’s promise that the Son of Man, for whom we wait and stay watchful this Advent, is the Christ who walked the earth as healer of those in need and died on a cross for all.[3]

God’s promise that draws us into the fullness of the future, a future with hope.[4]

[1] Barbara R. Rossing. The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation. (New York: Basic Books, 2004), 178-181.

"Caitlin Trussell tells the truth of our Christian Faith with so much kindness, wisdom and conviction that I am always left wanting more. She's one heck of a preacher and speaker."

- Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber, founding pastor of House for All Sinners and Saints (ELCA Denver, Co), Published Author, International Speaker, patheos.com/blogs/nadiabolzweber/

"Caitlin Trussell approaches the gospel with the passion of an evangelist, the creativity of an artist, and the pastoral sensitivity of a loving parent. She unfailingly helps everyday Christians find God in their reading and hearing of the Scriptures and always finds a message that both challenges and comforts us with the good news of Christ. She is, in short, a superb teacher and preacher of the Word."

Rev. Dr. David Lose, President of Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia; and writer at www.davidlose.net

"Caitlin is one of the best preachers I’ve had the privilege of learning from. She has a gift to open new places in the mind and heart – for audiences new to the message of God’s love, and for “old hands” like me as well! With her breadth of experience – raising kids, nursing cancer victims, pastoring people in prisons and hospice, and graduating from seminary – she brings depth and wisdom.”